


We'll Remake The World in Our Own Image

by la_muerta



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Childhood Memories, Christmas, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 00:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12618636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_muerta/pseuds/la_muerta
Summary: Magnus remembers very little from his boyhood in Batavia. But whatever he does remember makes his feelings for December and the Christmas season very complicated.





	We'll Remake The World in Our Own Image

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LucyxShadow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyxShadow/gifts).



  

 

Other than a few bad memories that will be etched into his memory for as long as he lives, Magnus remembers very little from his boyhood in Batavia. 

He knows he was born in December, during the monsoon season - endless rain that swept through the trees and pitter-pattered throughout the night in the kind of intensity one only ever gets in the tropics, while the geckos or  _chik-chak_ chittered from hidden places in the eaves. When he was a little older, he would sneak into the servants' quarters, and they would share deep-fried _laron_ with him - flying termites, driven out of their underground nests by the flooding rain and drawn into the house by the candlelight. (Then his human father found out, and was so disgusted that they were feeding his son insects that he beat the servants black-and-blue, and that was the end of that, and the end of his tentative friendship with the servants.) 

He remembers playing among the tall walnut and tamarind trees in the well-curated gardens of Bovenstad, the elite Dutch residential area in Batavia where he lived with his mother and human father. He remembers his mother telling him Javanese folktales at bedtime, her favourite being that of Timun Mas, whose mother had so longed for a child that she made a deal with an ogre. (This strikes Magnus as ironic later in life, because his mother, too, had longed and prayed for a child, and had her prayers answered by something monstrous.) He remembers that his mother called him _sayang_ \- beloved. 

December is a complicated month for Magnus, emotionally. He doesn't celebrate his birthday, not anymore. They celebrated Christmas as a child in deference to his father's wishes, so Magnus doesn't celebrate that anymore either. (Although any excuse to buy presents for the few people he holds dear to his heart is as good an excuse as any to go shopping, so Magnus has no problems with the gift-giving part of Christmas.) The month of December holds, at once, too much meaning and very little meaning for Magnus.

Thankfully, Alec seems just as disinterested in the holiday festivities that have taken over every shop window and planted carollers on what feels like every street corner in New York City. Magnus supposes shadowhunters aren't generally very big on holidays since demons don't have the basic courtesy to give everybody a break during the holiday season. Previously, with some of the other people he's dated, Christmas time came with expectations - of romance and presents and cuddling in front of a fire while the snow falls outside, none of which Magnus is in the mood for because of his convoluted personal history. Honestly, Magnus is a little bit relieved that Alec isn't going to expect a big production out of this, their first Christmas together.

When he comes home one day to find Alec busy in the kitchen with several takeout bags on the counter, the dining table set with the good silver and candles, a bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of ice, Magnus feels his stomach dropping sickeningly, his heartbeat speeding up, and not with the excitement that usually comes from finding his boyfriend home unexpectedly early. It's over two weeks before Christmas, and worse, it happens to be... There's no way Alec found out, he knows this information is not in the Institute's database, and not even _Catarina_ knows-

"What's all this about?" Magnus asks lightly, with a cheerfulness he does not really feel. 

Alec startles, and Magnus is amused despite his current turmoil of emotions - it's not easy to sneak up on his shadowhunter. Alec must really have been concentrating on whatever he was doing. 

Alec flashes him a smile and walks over to press a gentle kiss to Magnus' lips. "Hey. I didn't expect you to be home so early."

"Well, if you wanted to surprise me, consider me still pleasantly surprised," Magnus tells him. 

Alec smiles shyly and goes back to unpacking the eclectic mix of stuff he has bought - bacon burgers from that place in East Village that Alec likes, a spread of appetisers from Cocoron, a Japanese restaurant in lower Manhattan they'd visited once together, and takeout bags Magnus recognises as coming from that place that makes _trdelnik_ almost as well as the best street vendors in Prague.

"It's been three months since our first date. We've been together for exactly three months today, if we include the couple of days when we were... fighting," Alec says, face turned away and hands busy, and Magnus realises that Alec is nervous. "I just thought... we could have a little celebration."

Magnus blinks. Three months? Three months is not much for someone centuries-old, and even for mortals Magnus is pretty sure three months is like a mere blip in the average lifetime. But Alec thinks that being together for three months warrants breaking out the champagne? Magnus can't help but feel charmed.

Granted, it certainly feels a lot longer than three months. And when the two people in a relationship are also the High Warlock of Brooklyn and the Head of the New York Institute, their relationship problems have included impending war, mass genocide by a xenophobic psychopath, too many demons to count, and the raising of the Angel Raziel. They have been through _a lot_ together, in a very short span of time.

As an immortal, time is a nebulous thing for Magnus. Days and weeks can go by in the blink of an eye. There are stretches of years where Magnus can't for the life of him remember anything that happened during that period. But when he is with Alec, Magnus' whole life seems to fall in sync with the shadowhunter - every second, every heartbeat. He has never felt so keenly the idea of _now_ , never been so firmly present in the idea of _here_.

Magnus watches Alec clumsily attempting to plate the food he's bought in some sort of artistic arrangement, and he feels even more charmed.

"Sorry," Alec says after surveying his own handiwork, laughing a little at himself. 

"I think it's perfect," Magnus tells him softly, and he thinks it was worth going through every heartbreak and every sorrow to find himself finally here, watching Alec's face light up.

They have dinner, finishing off with champagne, _trdelnik_ and good vanilla ice cream. They tell each other about their day, share a few laughs over some mischief Max got into. They watch something on the television together, something horribly twee and Christmasy that makes Alec roll his eyes at least four times, and then they go to sleep with their arms wrapped around each other. It's the best birthday Magnus has had in centuries.

Perhaps, Magnus thinks, every day can be remade into something different, now that Alexander is here to make new memories with him. 

**Author's Note:**

> The bits about Magnus' childhood in Indonesia come from a combination of research, personal experience, and stories someone told me from the memoirs of his great-great-great-grandfather. I have actually eaten _laron_. It mostly tastes of salt and it's crunchy, so if you don't think too much about what you're actually eating, I guess it's fine? :P


End file.
